1. Prior Art
Presently, most power mechanisms are mainly driven by electric motors, engines or hydraulic motors. In particular, industrial robots in many factories are driven by electric motors. This limits joint related activities in the mechanical arms of those robots. In addition, existing robotic research is focused on areas such as improving walking balance and control of humanoid robots and quadruped-like mechanisms. The bionic content is rather small. The movement of humanoid robot and other quadruped-like mechanisms is very stiff. Consequently, their flexibility is limited.
2. Description of Invention
The object of this invention is to provide a bionic telescopic matrix unit, which is capable of mimicking the animal movement resulting from stretching and contraction of muscle tissue. It can then be utilized fully in humanoid robot or quadruped-like mechanisms so that humanoid robot or quadruped-like mechanisms can move freely and flexibly.
This invention is implemented as follow: It is a bionic telescopic matrix unit. This telescopic matrix unit is composed of a slide shaft, a metal guide pipe, an elastic telescopic shell and an electromagnetic coil. In the elastic telescopic shell, the slide shaft made of a permanent magnet extends into the metal guide pipe via the front end of the pipe and comes into sliding contact with the inner tube wall of the metal guide pipe. The rear end of the metal guide pipe and the front end of the slide shaft protrude out through the back and front openings of the elastic telescopic shell, respectively. Furthermore, the front and back openings of the elastic telescopic shell are secured to the outer wall of the metal slide pipe and the slide shaft to connect the metal guide pipe to the slide shaft. The elongation length of the elastic telescopic shell matches the reciprocating stroke of the slide shaft in the metal guide pipe. The electromagnetic coil, which is wound around the outer peripheral wall of the metal guide pipe, is covered by the elastic telescopic shell. The two ends of the electromagnetic coil are appropriately connected to the positive and negative poles of a power supply.
The principle of this invention is as follows: In each bionic telescopic matrix unit, the slide shaft made of a permanent magnet slides back and forth under the influence of magnetic force generated by the electromagnetic coil wound around the outer peripheral wall of the metal guide pipe. The mechanism of this bionic telescopic matrix unit is similar to the telescopic function of muscle cells. It mimics the principle of muscle cell stretching and contraction. Collectively as a whole, each group of bionic telescopic matrix units can stretch and contract in a reciprocating manner at the same time to provide a bionic telescopic tissue. It can be used be used in fields such as humanoid robots and quadruped-like mechanisms. This invention is capable of mimicking movement caused by animal muscle extension to enable humanoid robot or quadruped-like mechanisms to move more freely and flexibly.